Trailer

Trailer is to be the spring Poetry Book Society pamphlet choice for 2008

"Dad has always driven slowlyas though he has always beendragging this trailerfull of loose endsfrom his childhood that he can't let go"

Trailer is a series of meditative poems about the poet's family history and the way the past travels with us. The poems - like paintings by Chagall - stir up time and place to dissolving point, honouring the material world but not taking it for what it is. Or isn't. Trailer is a memorial to the poet's grandparents and great grandparents.

"'...how much dark one candle/can leave' writes Anna Woodford at the passing of her grandmother. It's a dark that will accompany, will see her through. There's a level-headed love here that, like life itself, is strong enough to carry the equipages of wit and brilliance in her poetry." - Gillian Allnutt

"I never thought I would use the word 'cool' as a compliment to characterise a young poet's work, least of all when it deals with family material of such deep personal resonance. And yet that is my reaction to Anna Woodford's workings in what has lately become a popular literary territory involving grandparents and immigration. The emotions are strong, and for this very reason, in relation to her material, she stands, whether consciously or intuitively, 'at a slight angle to the universe', as Forster famously wrote of Cavafy. She is tough-minded and tender-hearted." - Anthony Rudolf